dougthonus wrote:DuckIII wrote:Interesting discussion. I guess if I had one point to reiterate here, its that we started the process of building around Giddey 4 months ago. Its going to take at least two more years to see what that will look like. They aren't doing it all at once, but its impossible for me to understand how someone can say that is not what is happening. Admittedly its through KC, but the Bulls have basically acknowledged that the plan is to build a team that blends with Giddey's style of play.
Does that include getting a mobile rim protecting center? Definitely. Does the absence of one today 4 months into the rebuild mean we aren't going to get one? Of course not.
And really, I don't want all these needs addressed right now. That's exactly the kind of mistake I'd expect AK to make, but he hasn't made it. I want weaknesses for a year to limit our win total. I don't want to shore up that stuff this year any more than we already have. I suspect we will to some extent, because I still expect at least one trade. But ideally we just let this new core evolve for a year without any more artificial short term "solutions."
FWIW, if your view is just that we're going to build around Giddey, I have no problem doing that, and maybe I was misinterpreting your point.
To be exact, what I'm saying is that the Bulls have already decided to build the team around Giddey's unique game, have already begun doing that, but it will take some time to do it fully. You were contesting that they are even doing this, which I still don't really understand. That's the sticking point on that item.
I don't think we are presently built around Giddey, and I don't think any of our decisions to date are better or worse with Giddey here than without Giddey here.
Building, not built. Correct. Whether those decisions would look good without Giddey isn't really relevant to what I was saying. Sure, I think two really tall, unusually athletic, 3/4 hybrids would be nice on any team. Its a desirable player type. But its extra great when you want to run and have one of the best passers in the NBA leading that attack.
Nor do I think Giddey is a good enough or meaningful enough player that we should be thinkin around building around him.
Not as a franchise player, but as a style of play. Nor does it appear the FO has any intention of treating him like a franchise player.
However, next season, we will have a ton of options to do all kinds of things. Coby, Ayo, Collins, Huerter, Vuc, and Carter will all be gone (or need to be reupped) and we'll have an absolute ton of cap space. We'll be able to completely change almost everything in a year.
My preferred path would be to trade anyone that can give you picks this year (outside of Noa/Matas), and just be really bad then hopefully grab a franchise player in a draft that might have three or four of them, then use all your extra picks and reup with whatever market value you guys you want around Noa, Matas, your 2026 pick, your extra picks you picked up in trade, and roll from there without trying to build a unicorn roster around a flawed player.
I get we won't do that of course, but I think more or less four the past four seasons every year I said "this is what I would do" has been something that with hindsight, I still like more than what we actually did.
Sure, if we are trying to do whatever we have to do to to contend no matter how many down years it requires, gutting this roster of basically everyone but Matas and Noah makes sense. But we aren't going to do that so I don't even worry about it anymore. I'll accept a young, athletic team that's fun to watch that has the contract flexibility to adapt.
My fury at AK's refusal to trade off assets and start over in the past was because: (a) those assets were old and/or injury prone and absolutely certain to depreciate in value during their deals; (b) had us completely locked into a core contractually; (c) that core was not even remotely close to being able to contend with zero options to correct that with a tweak here and there on the fly; and (d) we had less than even our own picks.
This is different. So I have a much different attitude about it. He might totally bugger it up again with his impatience and general idiocy, but for right now he's going about things in a much better way than he had been.
